Alex Paterson

Alex Paterson was born on October 15, 1959 in London. He's best known for being the
central member and driving force behind The Orb, an ever-evolving collaborative ensemble that, as of the 1997 release Orblivion most
focally included Andy Hughes and Thomas Fehlmann. (Andy contributed significantly to the as-yet-unreleased Orb
effort Cydonia, but parted ways in the first half of 2000.)

Alex got his start in the music business as
a roadie (actually, a drum tech) for Killing Joke, and begain
touring with them in 1979. His high school pal Martin Glover, who by then
was going by the name Youth, played bass in the band. When Youth left Killing
Joke, he, Jimmy Cauty and Guy Pratt teamed up to make Brilliant, and Alex roadied
for them as well.

Alex joined Editions EG ( Eno's label) as an A&R representative and, in this capacity,
travelled extensively, meeting many musicians he would later work with.

Youth and Alex got together with Adam Morris to form the label
'WAU! Mr Modo', which turned out to be home for several ambient and house acts.
They began recording at Jimmy Cauty's
Trancentral Studio, and, in the summer of 1988, Alex and Jimmy laid down some
tracks that Youth cut on his album "Eternity Project One" as "Tripping on Sunshine",
which was the first Orb material to see commercial release.

The Orb's first release was "The Kiss EP", a sample-based tribute to the groundbreaking New York
ambient radio station, KISS FM, and recorded in October, 1988. All 949 copies
sold out, and it's never been
reissued.

Next came "A Huge Ever-Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From
The Centre Of The Ultraworld (Loving You)" which was the first release of Alex and Jimmy's
that began to really sound like The Orb. Recorded in 1989, it includes samples of
Minnie Ripperton's "Loving You".
They got in trouble for the samples, and for releasing a single that was 22 minutes
long, past the length allowed by UK Gallup (which keeps music popularity charts; they
didn't notice, though, until the single was in the top 50!).

Alex and Jimmy split up in 1990 over a disagreement -- Jimmy thought of Alex mostly as a
DJ, but Alex wanted to have more musical input. Jimmy joined Bill Drummond to form
The KLF, and Alex continued with The Orb.

His next project, begun in July 1990 with Youth, resulted in
probably the best-known Orb track, "Little Fluffy Clouds." Youth and Alex worked with
a talented young sound engineer, Kris Weston (aka Thrash), on mixes of this track
and a firm musical partnership was born. Thrash went on to become a vital musical
influence within The Orb, working closely with Paterson.

The second Orb LP, "U.F.Orb", was released in June of 1992. It contained a top ten
single, "The Blue Room", and the album itself reached number one on the UK charts. By this
time Gallup UK had relaxed their length limits for singles, because "The Blue Room" was a
whopping 39 minutes long!

The Orb broke with their label, Big Life, in 1993, when the label attempted to
prevent them from releasing any more records. Alex and Thrash focused during this time on
remixing and producing for acts such as Front 242, U2, Yello and others. In November 1993,
they signed with Island Records and released "Orb Live 93", a compendium of live
recoordings from 1993.

Thrash left the Orb at this point, tired of touring. The next major release came in 1997
as "Orblivion", a collaboration with Alex, Andy Hughes and Thomas Fehlmann. This album
shows more dance influence, with SLIGHTLY more melody and beats than the previous release --
But it's still chill out music.

Material for the newest Orb album, titled "Cydonia", has been ready for over a year
as of this writing, but isn't due to be released until January of 2001.

Alex Paterson is an important figure in the development of ambient music, and
a complete discography would be a mile long if you include all his roles as producer and
remixer. (I've started compiling that list, and hope to finish it and add it here.)